Tapping For Kids With EFT Practitioner Eleni Vardaki

  • by XpatAthens
  • Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Tapping For Kids With EFT Practitioner Eleni Vardaki
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), commonly known as tapping, are gaining recognition as an approach for emotional regulation and mental well-being among kids of all ages. 
EFT involves tapping on specific meridian points on the body while focusing on a specific distressing emotion, physical sensation, experience, or goal. 

Research on EFT for kids shows that it significantly reduces their anxiety as well as improving performance. Tapping is therefore a valuable approach for protecting and improving kids’ mental health and well-being as well as helping them achieve their goals.

What is EFT Tapping?

Tapping combines elements of ancient Chinese medicine and Modern Psychology. It’s an effective method for dealing with negative emotions. For children, tapping can be particularly beneficial in managing feelings of anxiety, fear, or frustration. 

Kids “short-circuit” their stress response and negative emotions by tapping on specific acupressure points while focusing on their concerns or feelings. This allows them to deal with a stressful situation from a calmer emotional state. 

Essentially, when a child taps with a qualified EFT specialist, it’s like doing acupuncture without needles for their negative emotions. That, in turn, helps interrupt negative thinking patterns.

10 Benefits of Tapping for Kids 
  1. Safe and Gentle: EFT presents a low-risk, accessible way of enhancing the emotional well-being of kids and adolescents. It’s a non-invasive modality that is safe for children of all ages. When the stress is reduced to a low enough level using EFT, a child’s negative thinking about a particular stressor tends to shift to a more neutral or positive frame of mind. In EFT therapy, we call this a Client Cognitive Reframe. It happens organically as part of the therapeutic EFT process. 
  1. Emotional Regulation: EFT helps children articulate their feelings and manage their emotions effectively. For instance, a child experiencing bullying can tap on specific points while they talk about their feelings of fear or sadness. This not only alleviates immediate distress but also fosters resilience in handling future emotional challenges.
  2. Emotion-Focused Tapping: Working with an EFT Practitioner helps kids identify specific emotions (like anxiety or sadness) and tap through them together.
  3. Specific Event Tapping: If necessary, an EFT Practitioner may also encourage kids to recall a specific upsetting event while tapping to neutralize the associated negative emotions.
  4. Addressing Trauma: For older kids who may have experienced things like bullying or a traumatic meltdown in an important exam, EFT serves as a gentle therapeutic intervention that can help them process these events in a safe manner. Various play- based EFT strategies are used for younger kids to facilitate communication and the processing of trauma.
  5. Increased Confidence: Regular tapping sessions can empower young people by enhancing their self-esteem and confidence. As they learn to manage their emotions using EFT, they become more equipped to face academic pressures and social situation without overwhelming anxiety.
  6. Accessible Stress Management: Kids can easily integrate EFT into their daily routines by make tapping a regular practice. They can do EFT before exams or presentations to ease anxiety, or even before going to bed as many struggle with sleep issues due to anxiety or racing minds.
  7. Improved Sleep: Adolescents often experience heightened stress levels when faced with increased academic demands or unkind peer behaviours. Working with a tapping specialist helps children address these concerns, which in turn improves their sleep.
  8. Mindfulness and Self-Reflection: EFT encourages mindfulness by prompting teens to focus on their feelings while engaging in the tapping process. It’s a self-reflective practice that encourages emotional awareness and healthier coping strategies.
  9. Tapping for Clearing Blocks to Achieving a Specific Goal: EFT for achieving goals is great for adolescents. They enjoy having that 1:1 support to clear any emotional or stress blocks to achieving a goal that is important to them regarding grades, exams, presentations, changing a bad habit, friendships goals, etc.
  10. Rapid Results: Children often lack the emotional baggage adults carry, so EFT can yield even quicker results, enabling them to process negative emotions more efficiently. Plus, by learning tapping techniques, they gain valuable skills to manage their emotions in between sessions. This agency further increasing the speed of results as they don’t need to wait for their next session with their EFT Practitioner to make progress.
For the little ones, Eleni incorporates age-appropriate playful elements into her EFT sessions, making the experience enjoyable. Through games and creative activities, younger kids learn to tap away their worries while having fun.

Whether your child struggles with school stress, social anxieties, or emotional outbursts, EFT sessions can provide them with the tools they need to navigate their feelings effectively.

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Eleni is an Advanced EFT Practitioner based in Athens.
CLICK HERE to learn more about her services!